Formula One: Villeneuve claims seventh in qualifying for Belgian Grand Prix
26 August 2000
One of the more interesting qualifying sessions of the season took place around the challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit this afternoon. Lucky Strike Reynard BAR Honda drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta continued the good work of yesterday, claiming seventh and 13th places on the grid respectively. Both BAR Honda drivers improved their times steadily throughout the one hour period. Villeneuve's lap times were always among the fastest and although the Canadian will start tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix from row four, his best time today was just a third of a second off a place on the front row of the grid. Zonta was unlucky not to finish in the top ten when yellow flags interrupted his final flying lap. Jacques Villeneuve Position: 7th 1min 51.799sec "I made a mistake at the chicane on my final lap which cost me two or three tenths and that could have been very useful on the grid. I wasn't able to take Eau Rouge 'flat' because the back was a bit loose, but we were still among the quickest on the exit of the corner. I think we can expect a strong race performance tomorrow and if we get a good start we should be able to aim for at least a points finish and possibly a podium." Ricardo Zonta Position: 13th 1min 53.002sec "My confidence gets better with every lap here, but I am still not fast enough through Eau Rouge and that is where I am losing most of my time. We still have some understeer and the long middle section of the lap is where any balance problems affect you most. We need to do some more work on the set-up to try to cure it for tomorrow." Takefumi Hosaka - Managing Director, Honda R&D "We are fairly pleased with today's result. The engine and the chassis are in reasonably good shape thanks to the efforts of both Honda and BAR engineers. We have lots of supporters over from Japan for this race and we want to do our best and make no mistakes tomorrow." Jordan Mugen-Honda had a day of mixed fortunes. Jarno Trulli delivered a stunning performance to claim a place on the front row of the grid for the second time this year. The Italian traded provisional pole position with Hakkinen throughout the session and claimed to have taken the daunting Eau Rouge corner 'flat'. Team mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen had his initial lap time excluded after he had to run across the grass at the 'bus-stop' chicane to avoid Coulthard's McLaren. The German recovered well, but was unable to improve on eighth position. A Jordan driver has finished on podium at Spa for the last three years and the team will be hoping to continue this run tomorrow.